Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile information terminal, an image forming apparatus, a system, a control method therefor, and a storage medium, and in particular to a technique for controlling communication between a mobile information terminal and an image forming apparatus which are capable of carrying out near-field wireless communication such as NFC.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, mobile information terminals such as smartphones and tablet terminals have begun to be adopted for work at offices. Also, mobile information terminals such as smartphones and tablets are equipped with communication means for near-field wireless communication (such as NFC: near-field communication), wireless LANs, and so on so as to easily carry out communications with a variety of devices. Further, image forming apparatuses with multiple functions such as copying, printing, and scanning functions have increasingly been equipped with communication means for near-field communication, wireless LANs, and so on as mentioned above.
Such image forming apparatuses offer a function of carrying out communications with mobile information terminals such as smartphones and tablets and working in conjunction with them. For example, an operation of having an image forming apparatus which is to perform printing recognized is performed on a mobile information terminal using near-field wireless communication, and an image on the mobile information terminal is sent from an application on the mobile information terminal to the image forming apparatus, which in turn performs printing (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2013-187571).
However, problems described hereafter arises in the above described system configuration in which a mobile information terminal and an image forming apparatus are recognized using near field wireless communication, and after that, the image forming apparatus are caused to implement various functions through operation from the mobile information terminal.
Firstly, even after a process to have a mobile information terminal and an image forming apparatus recognized is carried out using near-field wireless communication, an operating unit of the image forming apparatus is available for use. When a job is submitted from the mobile information terminal, this submission is ordered via a wireless LAN interface recognized using near-field wireless communication, and hence there may be a case where the mobile information terminal is not operated near the image forming apparatus. In this case, before the mobile information terminal submits a job (for example, a print job), the image forming apparatus may be used by other users, and the job from the mobile information terminal may not be immediately executed.
Secondly, there is an image forming apparatus which requires an operation of shifting it into a scan-only mode at the time of performing a scanning function of sending an image scanned off by the image forming apparatus to a mobile information terminal. For example, to cause the image forming apparatus to perform scanning by operating the mobile information terminal after the mobile information terminal is recognized by the image forming apparatus using near-field wireless communication, an operation of shifting the image forming apparatus into a scan-only mode is required to be performed via an operating unit of the image forming apparatus, making user operation complicated.